


Roulette

by aslightstep



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parenting, M/M, POV First Person, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tony-centric, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 05:11:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12474236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aslightstep/pseuds/aslightstep
Summary: When the dust clears after Civil War, Tony and Steve are still sifting through the ashes. Like true maladjusted human beings, they don't handle it in the healthiest ways. Tony calls it the Trauma Olympics. Steve calls it 'talking it out.' In doing so, they uncover the ugliest parts of each other.The two worst things Tony ever tells Steve are about his parents.





	Roulette

**Author's Note:**

> A different look at Maria Stark's role in Tony's childhood while keeping her canon post-humous standing with her son (i.e. a loving, kind woman whom he adored) intact. I believe the warning in the tags are sufficient but I'd like to be clear here that while Tony loved his parents, in this story neither one of them are good parents throughout his childhood.

It becomes almost a game between us at some point, I’m not sure when. Tony calls it the ‘Trauma Olympics.’ I call it ‘talking about your feelings.’ 

We agree to disagree. We’re good at that.

We meet on the couch in the common room or in the workshop, always in the moment right after the dead of night when neither of us can sleep. The first time we did this, before it was a habit, before it became a therapy that didn’t feel like flaying my brain open, it was an attack on his part, practically begging me to lay out a sob story just so he could tear it to pieces.

(’I’m so sick of your  _excuses_.’)

I don’t need a story. I’ve lived, and sometimes that seems like tragedy enough.

But it was more than Tony had spoken to me in months, so I rise to the bait. Flung down the gauntlet. I start with the most recent wound - him. 

(’You  _abandoned_  me.’)

He’s the one to back down that night, and I feel anything but proud. 

He’s also the one that keeps coming back. Anger burns bright in him, but I’d rather have this than the nothing I’ve had for months. He lets me talk, and even when he bites back, aiming to hurt, at least he’s listening.

I tell him about the horrible things, the dark things. I tell him about the smell of rotting corpses - he counters with the smell of burning flesh. I tell him about the quiet of ice and he sneers ‘remember when you almost closed me up in space?’

I tell him about the pain of letting a friend slip through your fingers and he - goes quiet. Sympathizes.  _Tells_  me that he agrees. There is nothing worse.

It becomes a thing after that - a game, if you’re Tony. Healing, maybe, for me. He volunteers, once or twice, starts the game himself. I come up, more than once, and it’s hard to listen to, especially the things I wasn’t around for, the impressions Howard left, but we have an unspoken rule now that we don’t interrupt. These are our terrible things. No one else gets an opinion.

He holds my hand one night when I talk about the four times I’ve lost Bucky. (’Isn’t it supposed to get easier?’). He tells me he’s sorry another night, the night when Bucky Barnes is  _his_  tale of woe. (’Thanks. For stopping me.’)

He tells me that we all could have done better, and we didn’t.

But the worst things Tony tells me aren’t about Bucky, or Afghanistan, or the wormhole, or Stane, or the civil war. Or me. The worst things, in the grand scheme of his life, almost seem tiny in comparison but for the lasting effects they have on the man. But they stick with me, for days, weeks, months, years from now when Tony and I will be happy again. I will still look over to him, long after the other hurts have faded, and remember these two small things, and pull him close to me to hold him tight.

(’Why are you such a  _sap_?’)

The two worst things Tony tells me are about his parents.

* * *

One goes like this: 

We are in the workshop, and he is angry because I’ve implied something that I shouldn’t have.

“Howard  _never_  hit me,” Tony snaps, white with fury, and I back off, subject dropped, because I’ve made a mistake.

Then. Quieter. 

“He didn’t have to.” Calmly, calm,  _too calm._

It rolls around in my head for hours after words as I think  _sticks and stones may break my bones, but words…_

_But words._

* * *

The other goes like this:

We are on the couch, and Tony is drunk, because none of us but Rhodes are the kind of friends who can caution Tony about his drinking anymore and the War Machine is out on a mission.

“I got it from my mom,” he slurs, apropos of nothing until he glares blearily at me. “It’s my turn to share, right?” I nod hesitantly, because we’ve talked about everything but Maria Stark. Tony’s mother is sacred, secret. 

“Well, then, I’m adding to my Trauma Tetris,” he goes on. “The drinking. I didn’t get it from Howard. Got it from my mama.” He laughs. He sobs. I can’t tell the difference. I can’t even speak.

“See, my dad liked his booze but he was too busy too…driven to really dive into alcoholism.” And I’ve seen Howard in his later years, read reports, saw how neatly they matched to Tony’s own behavior before Afghanistan and occasionally after, and I wonder if this is a lie Tony made up about his father as a young man merely so it would be perfect when he told it to himself years later. “Or maybe - maybe he just learned better, watching her. Because she. Loved. Liquor.” He emphasizes each word with a sharp rap of his knuckles against his tumbler.

“And looking back now, I can see so many times where Dad tried to help her, or Jarvis. But see, when I was little? I didn’t want her to stop.” Tony suddenly seems very sober, staring down at his drink. “I would bring her drinks in the afternoon. Got my first sip from her.

“I didn’t understand addiction. Or the damage it was doing. Or what ‘enabling’ meant. All I knew was that when she had a glass in her hand, my mother smiled and laughed and was the life of the party. When she was drunk,” he inhales shakily. “Mom loved me. When she was sober, she hated everything. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it took time. I thought if she stayed that way, she’d hate me forever.”

Somehow I manage to make my mouth move. “You were just a kid, Tony.”

Tony snorts. “I sneaked bourbon into her drinks at dinner because Jarvis thought I didn’t know where the bottle was. The cooking sherry, the wine bottles guests left as gifts. Jarvis and dad thought it was all her, but it was me. Because I wanted to help.”

“Tony,” I say firmly. I wait until he looks at me. “You were just a kid. You didn’t know any better.” 

“I started keeping bottles for myself,” he whispers. “When I was thirteen, me and Tiberius Stone racked up a pair of DUIs. Mom cried so hard when she and Dad came to pick me up, and every time I apologized, she just cried harder. She told me it was all her fault one night, sick, shaking, _fuck_ she was already going through withdrawal. I didn’t understand. It was my choice.” He looks down at the glass in his hand. “It was my choice to do that to myself.”

“She got sober?” I ask hopefully, wondering if the brave, brilliant woman Tony so admired and adored ever really existed.

“She tried her best. She slipped a couple of times before…the accident. Always started over. I still have every one of her AA chips. She was so dedicated. ‘Making up lost time,’ she said. She tried so hard for us. I went to school. And without me around-”

“Tony-”

“She got better. She didn’t have to be drunk to smile or be happy. And she still loved me just the same, even though if she was sitting here with us right now, she would tell you - I was her trauma. I ruined her life.”

“Tony, you just said it yourself. It was her choice to do that to yourself. Maria loved you, and you loved her. You were family. You forgave her, didn’t you?”

“Of course.” Tony seems offended I even asked. “There was nothing to forgive.”

“Why would you think she wouldn’t do the same?” I continue quietly. Tony gapes at me, thunderstruck by such a simple question, turning the question this way and that in his mind. This is the thing that Tony has never understood: that anyone could ever forgive him. That anyone could feel the same way about him as he does them. The only exception, as near as I can tell, has been Maria Stark.

I can see it the moment hope blooms in him. Carefully, I take the glass from him, and he lets me.

* * *

Tony calls the Trauma Olympics an ‘unprecedented draw,’ but we still meet up and talk. Slowly it spreads, to the day, to the evening, to our entire lives.

I steer Tony away from bars and he steers me away from the cliff I’ve been threatening to jump off of for almost ten years. We hang on to each other instead.

* * *

Years later, Tony will be playing with his own AA chip, and I will feel the old urge those memories always stir in me and pull him close. I will wrap my hand around his and we will hold the chip together.

“You know why I told you that?” he will say out of nowhere, and I will hum noncommittally. “Because I was hoping you would say exactly what you did.”

“Sometimes it’s easier to believe someone else,” I will agree, thinking of all the times he has sat me down and showed me that I had done the best I could. Or, even better, when he showed me the places I could do better next time.

There will always be a next time with Tony. I intend to see from now on that those times are only good.


End file.
